In This Week's Phoenix...

Dan Kennedy presents his 14th annual Muzzle Awards, which breaks down the “dishonorable enemies of free speech and personal liberty in New England.”

The list includes a Kennedy, a Mayor, a Governor and of course, one of Providence’s finest...

DEAN ESSERMAN

HIS OFFICERS HARASS ACTIVISTS FOR LEAFLETING ON PUBLIC WAY

If the First Amendment protects anything, it surely protects the right to stand peacefully on a public sidewalk and hand out leaflets protesting a political appointment. But it didn't protect Judith Reilly and Oscar Lemus on February 2, 2010. At 6:30 pm on that day, according to a lawsuit filed by Reilly in federal court, the two activists with the Olneyville Neighborhood Association were handing out fliers outside the Providence Career and Technical Academy, where then-mayor (now congressman) David Cicilline was about to deliver his "State of the City" address. The fliers objected to Cicilline's reappointment of Stephen Durkee to the City Planning Commission at a time when Durkee was being investigated for a possible ethics violation.